Resolution, p.45
Resolution, page 45
part #3 of The Nulapeiron Sequence Series
Tom flipped back into the chamber.
‘Warlord?’
Tom shook his head. ‘Avernon’s not happy.’
‘Aren’t the modules dispersed?’
‘Yes ...’ He could visualize the shuttle’s displays without slipping back into Seer-trance. ‘And their alignment looks OK to me, but not to—’
‘I’d say we have to go for it now, Tom.’ General Ygran was looking off to one side, his expression grim. It was the first time he had addressed Tom by name, not rank. ‘And may Fate be with us all.’
Holos swirled.
So be it.
Transmitters were poised to deliver timed signals across the globe.
‘Thank you, General.’
Tom raised his hand. ‘Ready to activate.’
Damn you, Anomaly.
Gestured.
A white glow spreads through the spinpoint field.
The shield modules are doing their work, collapsing spacetime in their vicinity, linking with each other to form a barrier around Nulapeiron. Shining—
And then the glow begins to fade. The spinpoint layer remains intact.
Nothing has changed.
Tom flips.
Eemur? Is Elva OK? Are you?
Which of us are you worried about?
For Fate’s sake.
We’re all right. Do whatever it is you have to, Tom.
Switch.
In the shuttle cabin, Avernon is still, regarding the status displays like a statue, while the other occupants stare out the windows at dark space, and the dying glow of their effort.
Tears track down Avernon’s cheeks.
‘I’m sorry, ‘he whispers. ‘I thought... I thought I could—’
‘Oh, Fate,’ murmurs the pilot.
Outside, small white points that are not distant stars are glowing as always.
Everyone in that cabin is aware of what it means. The collapse of spacetime is supposed to bring the spinpoints into existence as a side effect... but a side effect in negative time. From any ordinary viewpoint, the spinpoints should have disappeared several seconds ago, as if they had ceased to exist.
But still they shine.
‘We‘ve failed.’
Flip.
It meant failure, of their only defence against the Anomaly.
Failure.
Switch.
Nothing has changed, save that Avernon has turned away from the status displays.
Outside the shuttle, the spinpoints still shine.
A symbol of humanity’s defeat.
And flip.
Tom stared into the holo, but General Ygran seemed to know already.
‘What happened, Warlord? Enemy attacks are redoubling everywhere. If it’s sensed Avernon’s shield—’
‘Then it should have been too late for the Anomaly to do anything.’
‘If the shield had worked.’ General Ygran rubbed his face. ‘Does that mean...?’
‘It failed,’ said Tom. ‘That’s not guesswork. I Saw it fail.’
For a moment, there was only silence. When General Ygran finally spoke, his voice was hollow.
‘Then I guess ... we fight. Until the end.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Aye, Warlord.’
Tom tried.
The carls mass into a defensive circle, but Enemy forces are everywhere and in seconds they fall upon the outnumbered warriors. Every roaring berserker takes at least one Enemy soldier down with him.
But still the carls fall.
Shift.
Half the arachnasprites are riderless now, scuttling mindlessly away from the battle.
Shift.
Dark Fire rolls in black sheets across the magma, forcing the lava-dwellers back into their own domain.
Shift.
The armoured battalions fall back through the caverns as steel-blue metallic beings bigger than arachnargoi manifest themselves at the vanguard of the Anomalous forces.
Shift.
Enemy fighters converge upon the free forces’ suborbitals and blow them from the sky.
Back in the chamber:
Eemur? Are things as bad in your half of the world?
You know they are.
Tom stared at the displays, seeing only defeat. Against the bulkhead, the young soldier looked frozen, his grasp tightening around the weapon he probably would not get a chance to use.
Hey, Tom? You know I’m no Oracle ...
Right.
... but I always knew this would not end well.
Tom knew that was no joke.
Switch.
Armed arachnargoi spit fire while the smaller arachnabugs dart in and out, striking the advancing forces in vulnerable spots: hitting soldiers on foot behind the ponderous shielded lev-cars and aiming for the smaller non-human creatures, rather than the steel behemoths whose numbers keep increasing.
Metre by metre, the free forces fall back before the Anomaly.
Shift.
In the shuttle, Avernon sits on the deck, knees up against his chin and arms clasped around his shins: rocking, rocking, like an autistic child.
The pilot has left the controls, allowing the craft to drift through the spinpoint field whose continued existence is stark evidence of humanity’s failure.
Shift.
Torn corpses strewn across the Benbow Caverns.
Shift.
Dead piled high in Palace Darinia.
Shift.
In the Grand’aume Core, nothing moves.
Shift.
A dead child’s outstretched hand.
Tom leaned back against the chamber’s hard wall.
‘It stinks of defeat.’
‘My Lord?’
‘The whole world reeks of it. Defeat.’
‘Um ... Yes, sir.’ The young soldier bobs his head.
There’s nothing I can do.
There was a distant thud.
Just let things take their course.
A louder bang, and the whole chamber shook.
‘What the Fate—?’
‘They’re here, Warlord.’
Tom shook his head. He was stunned by his ongoing effort, by the inevitability of failure.
‘Who’s here?’
‘The Enemy.’ The young soldier looked up as the terraformer shook once more, and yells echoed from the command centre overhead. ‘They’re inside.’
‘Oh, Fate. Not now.’
Anomaly. You‘ve come for me.
It was the end.
~ * ~
58
NULAPEIRON AD 3426
The young soldier looked scared. As the chamber rocked once more, Tom grabbed hold of the doorway.
‘What’s your name, soldier?’
‘Er, Vize, sir. Pentor Vize.’
‘You know how to operate external comms, Pentor?’
‘Yes, Warlord.’
Someone screamed as they died outside.
‘Get me in contact with Lord Avernon. Talk to the shuttle pilot. Tell I him to do whatever’s necessary. He can kick a member of the nobility in the balls if that’s what it takes. Just get Avernon online, Pentor.’
‘I’ll do it, sir.’ Pentor Vize struggled across to the holos. ‘I’m not—’
Tom’s thumb ring sparked.
‘You’re authorized now.’ The doorshimmer opened, and Tom swung through to the corridor. ‘Fate be with you ... And throw me that crystal, would you?’
It arced through the air and Tom caught it.
Muscular carls were kneeling on the other side, facing both ways down the corridor, each with a heavy graser in one fist, a short wide morphblade in the other.
‘Axolon? Where is the Enemy?’
‘No.’
I will not let this happen.
‘Come on.’
Tom vaulted straight over the carls, headed for the golden helical stairs and hit them running, and sprinted up. Behind him, the carls moved very fast, shifting their muscular bulk to follow Tom as wild berserker rage lit up their eyes.
‘Blood and Death!’
Just for a moment, Tom Saw:
Three black angular craft hover outside Axolon Array. They are similar to the vessel Tom boarded on Siganth: the Enemy. Even though the Anomaly has its own forces already on board the terraformer, the lead craft turns to bring its major weapons to bear.
The terraformer itself revolves on its vertical axis, until the face of Axolon regards the vessels with his own microfaceted eyes. Axolon’s voice is like rumbling thunder.
It seems that time slows down as a soft bronze glimmer in the Enemy craft accompanies the resonance cavities’ excitation and the graser beams about to—
Subnuclear forces tear the air apart as Axolon unleashes his defences. The Enemy craft explodes.
Tom flung himself into the command centre and was in the thick of it.
Scarlet uniforms of the Anomalous forces were everywhere, roiling through the chamber in hand-to-hand fighting. Old General Ygran knocked an Enemy soldier onto the table where he sprawled amid tactical holos then brought his graser to bear on Ygran.
A carl’s morphblade severed the Enemy soldier’s hand above the wrist and arterial blood spurted as bright and scarlet as the invaders’ uniforms.
‘Elva!’
Fighting men and women stumbled close and Tom whipped out a raking blow that destroyed an Enemy fighter’s eyes. The maelstrom of struggling bodies was everywhere.
‘Tom!’
He saw Elva then, fists flashing polished brass - knuckledusters? - as she pummelled the man in front of her. Fighting figures obscured the view, then rolled past. Behind Elva, Jissie stood with a short dagger held point-up, ready for an upward thrust.
Fate. She’s a child.
A boiling mass of Enemy fighters surrounded Elva, a pandemonium of limbs and torsos, and Jissie was blotted from Tom’s sight once more.
With a roar Tom struck out, elbowed a face, spun around another man’s back, clawed his way through a third man’s guard, rotated another’s shoulder to push two men into each other’s way, and made a direct line towards Elva and Jissie.
A fist from nowhere snapped against the side of Tom’s jaw.
Tom spun and lashed back with a hammer-fist of his own and then leaped high, knee into the larynx, and the man was down and choking his final breath.
Elva!
Too late.
The Enemy were upon her and Jissie screamed and Tom threw off someone who tried to grab but he could not get there in time. A black-bronze creature was rising, its wings spreading as its rows of pitted eyes focused on Elva. It paused, poised to fall upon her.
That was its mistake.
Tom stopped in the midst of battle, statue-still as Chaos rolled past on every side, a screaming melee and the stench of fear and blood. Blue flames flickered as Tom lowered his head and Saw into the alien creature - inside its skull - and when Tom stretched his hand out to squeeze the hand was enveloped in a blaze of sapphire blue and the creature threw back its head and howled.
Good.
Tom squeezed harder.
The great bulk stumbled as Elva threw four men aside in a massive adrenaline rage and turned both fists towards the creature. Parallel graser beams ripped out of the brass devices that were more than knuckledusters, and cut the thing’s head away from its torso.
Then Elva turned the beams upon the men who had cut Jissie but failed to kill her and butchered their bodies into smoking offal.
Tom’s bodyguard, the enraged carls, howled their berserker roar and the Enemy fell back. Between Tom and the carls stood the bulk of the Enemy. Whatever Tom’s fighting skills had been it was time to transcend them now.
He spun and his right heel hooked into the first man’s temple; then he used the momentum transfer to reverse his spin, twist his torso the other way and thrust out his left leg, to target another’s lower ribs. He heard the crunch. Something arced towards Tom’s head and he dropped, palm on the floor as he spun and scissored someone’s leg, snapping their kneecap onto the deck and clawing at their eyes as he rose, still twisting, and was on his feet once more.
A scarlet-uniformed woman was swinging a graser pistol towards Tom and his foot was closest so he used a crescent kick then the edge of his hand to snap her collarbone - speed up - and hit her three times, fast, and she was down.
Two men came at Tom together - faster - and he went for the nerve-points and they died without a sound as he used a fallen body as a stepping-stone to leap high, into the heart of the Enemy force, a thrusting kick with the blade edge of his foot snapping a neck before he landed and pivoted and accelerated again.
The warrior who grabbed him from behind was as big as a carl but Tom’s head snapped back and he twisted, and butted twice from side to side. Tom slid down the big man’s torso, hooked his arm under the groin and launched himself upwards.
The big man’s bulk flew against his comrades and Tom snapped out a low kick to split someone’s knee, then a whipping kick, shin against thigh to paralyse the nerve, and two more were down. Another was close and Tom whipped his elbow in hard and followed with the knee and that was another to his tally but he should not congratulate himself because danger was everywhere.
Tom struck again and a soldier screamed but suddenly strong hands had hold of Tom and the chamber spun as the man threw Tom over his outstretched leg - faster - but Tom twisted in the air, landing crouched on his feet instead of on his head and then he sprang up with his hips to execute a counter-throw.
Had he held the man’s tunic it would not have done serious damage but Tom’s grip was around the man’s neck and as he fell Tom ripped back - crack - and the body that hit the floor was dead.
Something touched Tom from behind and he spun with hand upraised -faster - but it was a carl whose blood-lust was as great as Tom’s own and then he realized.
‘It’s done, Warlord.’
Blood rushed in Tom’s ears and yellow fluorescence edged his vision and he wanted only to fight but - no - he had to stop now - calm down - and he was panting and glistening beneath a sheet of sweat -calm - and slowly he brought himself back to a point where he could begin to process rational thought.
There were bodies strewn everywhere, great sucking chest wounds and severed torsos and those who whimpered and those who howled in the face of death.
Bodies of friends. Bodies of the Enemy: scarlet uniforms soaked with scarlet blood that splashed across the chamber.
But the only sign of movement among those who wore scarlet was the twitch of the mortally wounded and the sudden shudder as Jissie delivered a coup de grace and despatched a dying man.
‘We’ve won. For now, we’ve beaten them off
‘Aye, Warlord.’
But now the Anomaly knows where we are.
In the corner, Elva placed her hand on Jissie’s shoulder, looked up at Tom, wiped blood from her face. And gave a tiny smile.
Tom closed his eyes, collecting his thoughts.
Avernon.
He opened his eyes, dug out the crystal from his waistband: the crystal that the young soldier, Pentor Vize, had thrown to him.
Chaos ...
It was the wrong one. Tom had wanted the violet crystal that might allow him to contact the Grey Shadows and the Crystal Lady once more. But he had no rational reason to suppose that they would answer the call again, or that they could redouble their efforts inside Nulapeiron in any way.
